The course is titled ‘Dutch for exchange students’ and will open at the end of September. Kathelijn Jacobs from the Language Centre explains why they decided to launch it. ‘Every year we see a lot of students that want to learn Dutch. They start the regular beginners course but many of them don’t finish it because it requires quite a lot of time. We therefore wanted to offer a lighter version of this course.’
The new course will consist of five lessons held once a week. It’s open to all UT students who want to start learning Dutch. ‘It will be very practical and focus on speaking,’ says Jacobs. ‘Students will learn how to, for example, order a pizza, do their groceries, how to buy a train ticket. All the basics they need when they come to the Netherlands. Once they are finished with this course, they can move to the more intense one.’
The Language Centre wants to make the course as fun as possible. They created special short videos filmed at the campus and portraying typical situations local students need to deal with, such as shopping in the COOP supermarket or filling in forms. ‘We think the students can really recognize themselves in it,’ says Jacobs. ‘We want to make the lessons very lively and make speaking Dutch fun.’
You can find more information or sign up for the course here.
